New Order was only a few numbers into its Saturday night co-headlining set at Coachella when singer-guitarist Bernard Sumner turned, tripped over a cord and fell backwards. He arose, unhurt, but clearly annoyed. That his fall came as he was performing the song "Regret" provided a touch of unintentional irony.

The pioneering English dance-rock band was formed in the 1980s out of the ashes of Joy Division. Accordingly, Saturday's set included such Joy Division gems as "Blue Monday," "Transmission" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart."

New Order's co-headlining set in the Mojave Tent overlapped with an intensely atmospheric performance by Iceland's Sigur Ros on the Outdoor Theatre Stage. Their music, which was cinematic in scope (albeit in a proudly abstract way), was accompanied — at least volume-wise — by the much louder French band Phoenix, which was performing a groove-heavy set on the adjacent Coachella Stage, the festival's largest. Standing between the two stages provided an intriguing sonic melange by two very different bands.

While rumors flew Friday and Saturday that robotic French duo Daft Punk would join Phoenix for a song or two, the surprise guest Saturday turned out to be neo-R&B star R. Kelly. While he mysteriously refrained from singing "I Think I Can Fly" while diving off the stage into the audience, Kelly did team up with Phoenix for a curious mash-up of his song "Ignition (Remix)" and Phoenix's "1901." The crowd-pleasing result provided a telling example of Coachella's unique ability to mix the indie cred that has long been the festival's essence with its increasingly broad mainstream appeal.

Doing so is a tricky balancing act, one that Coachella pulls off better than almost any other festival. It appeals to scores of young hipsters, rabidly devout music fans and Hollywood celebs alike. Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan, who was in attendance, reportedly had her attorneys negotiate a recent agreement that her pending court-ordered rehab will begin only after this year's edition of Coacella concludes late tonight.

"Thank you very much for standing in the sun on drugs for us," cracked Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of Puscifer, as his band neared the conclusion of its set early Saturday night at the Coachella Valley Arts & Music Festival.

Keenan, who is better known as the front man in Tool, was speaking half in jest, as befits a man whose band performed a song called "Conditions of My Parole" and two with racy titles that can't be printed here. He was wearing a blonde bouffant wig, a faux white mustache and a quasi-safari suit that looked like it came from one of those old "What kind of man reads Playboy?" campaigns.

As an added bonus, he was the only Coachella performer to have his stage decorated with a vintage silver Airstream trailer. A total of 65 bands performed Saturday on six stages to an audience estimated to be at least equal in size to last year's record 85,000-plus attendance at the marathon music festival in Indio, which typically draws 20 percent of its audience from San Diego County.